Lord! Lord!

Wednes­day. [Phil. 2:24-30; Luke 6:46-7:1] And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say? Why do they call Him Lord, but do not do the Lord’s will; that is, why do they not ac­knowl­edge His lord­ship in their deeds? Be­cause they on­ly call with their tongue, and not with their heart. If their heart were to ut­ter: “Lord, Thou art my Lord,” then com­plete read­i­ness would a­bide in it to sub­mit to the one whom they con­fess as their Lord. But since they do not have this, their deeds do not match their tongue; where­as deeds al­ways match the heart. All right, so there is no point in call­ing: “Lord, Lord”? No, not so. But it is nec­es­sary to make the ex­ter­nal word match the in­ner word, which is the feel­ing and dis­po­si­tion of the heart. Sit and re­flect up­on the Lord and your­self: what is the Lord and what are you? Think a­bout what the Lord has done and still does for you, why you live and how it will end. You im­me­di­ate­ly will come to the con­vic­tion that there is no oth­er way than to stead­fast­ly ful­fil the Lord’s en­tire will; there is no oth­er path for us. This con­vic­tion gives birth to a read­i­ness to ful­fil in deed what is ex­pressed by the word “Lord.” With such read­i­ness a need for help from a­bove will be awak­en­ed, and from it the prayer: “Lord, Lord! Help me and give me strength to walk in Thy will.” And this call will be pleas­ing to the Lord.